He said such activity puts American lives at risk and blamed the "romanticized subculture" surrounding leakers like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning for making such activity seem apropos.

Mitchell called Snowden, Manning and whoever leaked the most recent documents to WikiLeaks "traitors."

Releasing CIA source codes, Mitchell said, would make America incredibly vulnerable to terrorists and also make terror suspects themselves harder to interrogate because they will know about American methods.

The FBI, which is conducting the investigation into the leaks, will be successful in identifying the perpetrators "if they are not politically correct about" the probe.